Let's Keep It A Secret (Older NicoMaki AU)
by Kotonata
Summary: As a professional idol, Nico cannot date anyone due to a contract she signed with her recording company. This makes things a little difficult between her and Maki.
Nico came back to her apartment, instantly collapsing onto her bed. She was tired and had just gotten home from a photoshoot and interview for a magazine.

"Busy day?" A familiar voice asked. Nico opened her eyes to look at her girlfriend, who had just walked into the room. She had most likely been home alone for a while. Maki was currently in medical school, so, like Nico, she was often , Nico, as an idol, seemed to be even busier. It was always practice, photoshoots, and live performances. She didn't often get much time off due to this busy schedule. And it always seemed like things randomly came up. She had no set schedule.

Nico nodded in reply to Maki's question and sat up, "Yeah, things just keep popping up."

"You do seem to be gone a lot more lately. You've gotten popular." Maki told her, sitting on the bed, next to Nico. She kissed Nico on the cheek.

"I did say I'd be the number one idol in the universe, didn't I?" Nico told Maki, smiling.

"Next time we're both free, let's go on a date, okay?" Maki suggested, holding her girlfriend's hand and intertwining their fingers.

Nico nodded with a smile, "That sounds great. Just no lovey dovey stuff in public, okay?"

"Yeah, I know. That whole contract thing."

As apart of Nico's contract, she's not allowed to date anyone. When she asked about it, she was told that dating would dash someone's dreams of dating such a wonderful idol as her. A little bit after, she started dating Maki in secret. She'd been an idol for almost a year and she's already hit it big. It was fairly easy to hide their relationship, due to them being able to pass as close friends. Nico kind of wished that she could come out about it in public, but she didn't want to ruin what she had worked so hard for. It'd been three years since she graduated from high school and she had worked for two of them to get a recording company to notice her.

The next day, Nico woke up with Maki snuggled close to her. She smiled and kissed the younger girl's forehead. She then got out of bed carefully so that she wouldn't wake her. She made her way to the kitchen and began to cook. Since, Maki hardly had any experience in the kitchen, Nico usually took over and cooked their meals. She also did most of the chores around the house. Maki had grown up so pampered that she never really knew what to do when it came to common household things. But, it didn't bother Nico, she was used to doing most of the housework.

Though, the apartment was getting rather messy because of Nico's frequent absence. However, some days she did come home and things seemed a little cleaning had been done. Maki also wasn't bad at cleaning up after herself. She just didn't do dishes, laundry, or clean everything spotless. Nico cooked breakfast and Maki woke up, walking in, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

"Good morning." The redhead yawned.

"Morning." Nico replied, smiling, "Want some breakfast?"

Maki nodded and sat down at the table, beginning to eat the food the raven haired idol had prepared for her. Maki really liked Nico's cooking. She had wanted to ask Nico for cooking lessons before so that Nico doesn't have to cook _all_ the time. But, she never did ask for the lessons. She knew that Nico's appointments popped up at random. Her manager never gave her a schedule.

Nico sat down, starting to eat her breakfast.

"Sleep well?" Maki asked her.

Nico nodded, "Yeah. I slept like a log."

"More like an exhausted idol."

Nico giggled, "Yeah, that's it."

"Yet you're still able to get up so early and make breakfast. You're amazing, Nico." Maki complimented her.

"I'm not the one going to medical school. That sounds hard." Nico replied.

"It's not that hard…" Maki said, her cheeks turning a light scarlet color.

Before Nico could reply, her phone began to ring. She pulled out the phone and answered, "Nico-Nii here~" She chimed, putting on her idol persona, "Oh, Manager? Did something come up?" She paused to listen, "Oh, a new song and dance? ... Yeah, I'll be there! You can count on Nico-Nii! Bye bye!" She hung up and sighed, "I have to go to the studio…"

"Oh, what time?" Maki asked her.

"By nine." Nico replied, sighing once again.

Maki looked up at the clock to check the time, it was eight-o-ten. "So, are you going to leave now?"

Nico nodded and stood up, "Yeah, I should… Do you have any classes today?"

Maki paused for a second to think but she then shook her head.

"Want to come along? They might let you watch practice." Nico grinned.

Maki smiled, "Yeah, sure."

"Then, let's go."

"Nico! You made it!" A tall woman with glasses and black hair pulled back into a ponytail exclaimed when Nico walked into the building wearing a pair of sunglasses, "Well, I said I'd be here, didn't I?"

"Who's this, though?" The woman asked, looking at Maki.

"Maki Nishikino. I'm Nico's roommate." Maki replied.

"It's okay if she watches today, right? She doesn't have med school today." Nico explained, she added in the med school part just to state that Maki was rich.

The woman hesitated, but nodded,"My name is Chika Atsuko. I'm Miss Yazawa's manager." She held out a hand and Maki shook it.

Chika lead them to the recording room. A familiar person was in the recording room, Umi Sonoda, the girl who wrote lyrics or their school idol group, μ's.

"Oh! Hey Umi!" Nico greeted her with a smile, "You wrote a song for me to sing?"

"Not really… I just wrote a poem and Kotori sent it to your manager…" Umi sighed, she then looked at Maki, "Are you two going to work together for something?"

Maki shook her head, "I'm too busy with med school to work with music." She sighed, "I'm just here to watch."

Nico recorded for a while then went to go work on dancing. Maki almost expected Eli to be there, but she soon found that the choreographer for μ's was nowhere to be seen. Eli and Nozomi were the ones Maki and Nico saw the most. Both of them would often visit the medium size apartment for random reasons.

After Nico was done with practice, she took Maki out to lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Maki looked around as they sat down at a table.

"It's not very fancy, but the food's good here." Nico explained.

"You've been here before?"

Nico nodded, "Yeah, my breaks aren't too long so I've come here because it's quick and not far away."

Maki nodded in understandment, she had gotten used to fast food when she hung out with the other school idols at a fast food restaurant in Akihabara. That was when she first saw Nico, who was dressed in a rather strange outfit in an attempt to disguise herself. She had tried to break up μ's but ended up joining, instead.

Maki smiled to herself, remembering the memory. At the time, she didn't really care and was quite surprised to see "poop" as some little boys had called Nico when they saw her flashy clothes. But, after spending some more time with the wannabe idol, Maki had grown to really like her. Even though she was annoying sometimes, Maki found it cute.

Now, Nico seemed a little more mature sometimes, but she was still as cute as ever in Maki's eyes. She really loved Nico and she wasn't too stubborn to admit that anymore. Of course, she knew she couldn't just yell out "I love Nico Yazawa!" Nico would probably hate her if she got fired over that. So, it was one of Maki's worst fears that someone would find out about them.

"Hey, Maki, are you okay?" Nico asked, looking concerned.

Maki snapped out of her thoughts, "Oh! I'm fine." She replied, starting to play with her hair a little.

"Maki!" A voice called.

Maki looked around, wondering where it came from.

"Sorry, I put the order under your name." Nico giggled, standing up to go get the order.

Maki smiled to herself as Nico came back with the food.

"That wasn't that bad." Maki stated as they left the restaurant.

Nico nodded, "It was better than usual, actually."

"Really? It was?" Maki asked.

Nico nodded, "Yeah, but it was because I'm with you~"

Maki blushed, "N-Nico… I thought you said we couldn't flirt or anything…"

"We can't, but it's not like anyone's listening."

"That's like if I kissed you in an alley and said it's okay because no one was watching…" Maki sighed, thinking about her fear of losing Nico.

"You're too classy to kiss me in an alley." Nico chuckled.

"Am I?" Maki asked her, "I could do it."

"But what if someone did see us?" Nico asked.

"I doubt they would." Maki said, dragging Nico into an alley.

"Maki! Wait!"

"And there's no one here after all." Maki said, she was just trying to prove her point to Nico that no one would be in the alley.

"Yeah, you're right." Nico said, kissing Maki on the lips.

The other girl blushed but kissed back, wrapping her arms around the other girl.

When Nico pulled away, she grinned, "And there's still no one around."

"L-let's get home." Maki said, embarrassed.

When the two of them arrived back at the apartment, both Nico and Maki's phones started going off.

They both gave each other a weird look and answered their phones.

"Huh? The news?" They both said at the same time as they answered their phones.

Maki turned on the TV only to see a news report. The current story was titled "Popular Idol Into Girls!?"

"The popular idol Yazawa Nico has been caught on camera by a paparazzi! Has this dashed the hopes and dreams of all men that admire the twenty year old pop idol?" The news lady said.

Nico's eyes widened and she plopped down onto the couch, "H-how could they… This is bad…" She hung up the phone and just stared at the TV.

"I-I'm going to go..." Maki told the person on her phone.

After about half an hour of Maki trying to comfort Nico, who looked as if everyone she loved had died, the doorbell rang. Maki got up to answer it. At the door, stood Nozomi and Eli, who walked in almost immediately.

"How's Nico taking it?" Eli asked, concerned.

"Is she sulking somewhere?" Nozomi added.

They had always kind of acted like parents when it came to Nico.

Maki led them over to the couch, "Hey, Nico, Nozomi and Eli are here."

"How are you holding up?" Nozomi asked her.

"I'm… fine…" Nico replied.

"No, you're not." Eli sighed, "I can't believe there was a paparazzi around… It must be awful."

"My career is over. I ruined people's dreams…" Nico muttered.

"Nico, you'll be fine. You can't have ruined too many people's dreams." Maki said, trying to comfort her.

"Has your manager called yet?" Nozomi asked, "When I met her, she seemed like a nice lady. Maybe she'll convince your recording company not to drop you."

"I violated my contract…" Nico told her, "I was supposed to keep all of this a secret…" She sighed.

Her phone went off but she didn't reach for it.

It was sitting next to her on the couch so Nozomi grabbed it and began to talk, "Hello? … Oh, this is her friend, Nozomi. She's not taking things well. Can you leave a message for her?" She went quiet, nodding her head a little as she listened, then she suddenly looked a little shocked and she looked down, her voice went from calm to a little uneasy, "I see… Well, I'll tell her that… Goodbye." She hung up and set the phone down.

"Am I fired?" Nico asked.

"Y-yeah…" Nozomi replied, looking away.

Nico sighed, a tear running down her cheek, though she quickly wiped it away.

"I… I'm going for a walk…" Maki said, standing up and leaving.

Nozomi and Eli comforted Nico for a while, but were gone by the time Maki got back.

"Where were you?" Nico asked Maki.

"Oh, I went downtown…" Maki replied, "I just needed to clear some things off of my mind…" She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, "Nico, I… I get if you don't want to be with me anymore… Maybe you can get an idol career elsewhere… I'm just really sorry to have ruined your dream job… Seeing you work today, I… I could tell how much you love your job… I feel bad for ruining it." Tears began to run down her face.

Nico hugged Maki, "No, I'm not going to leave you, Maki… You mean more to me than some idol job… I love you, Maki. Otherwise… Otherwise I wouldn't have let you move in with me. I wouldn't cook you breakfast everyday. I wouldn't do all of he chores. I wouldn't have taken you on dates whenever I could. And I definitely wouldn't have kissed you in that alley. I love you, don't ever forget that."

Maki smiled and kissed Nico, pulling away just a little bit to tell her that she loved her, too.

Nico had a little while to just stay home and relax. After that, she decided that she would go to med school with Maki to learn how to be a nurse. Being an idol again would be great, but working alongside the one she loves without having to hide it would be even better. Plus, she could still make people smile when she healed them up.


End file.
